"The hurricane center was wrong, flat wrong," WFTV-Channel 9 news director Bob Jordan said Saturday. "By getting this word out yesterday, it's the reason the streets were deserted as early as they were. It was a safer community."

Jordan cited chief meteorologist Tom Terry for recognizing three hours before the hurricane center did that the hurricane had turned to the northeast. WFTV is playing up Terry's feat in a commercial, though competitors WKMG-Channel 6 and WESH-Channel 2 said they delivered the same news early.

But the hurricane center near Miami wasn't saluting the Central Florida forecasts.

"I think it's a real disservice to let anybody think they're going to have a perfect forecast," said Max Mayfield, center director. "The intensity is of greater concern than the track. You don't want to focus on the eye. That's a nice, easy thing to plot, but hurricanes affect broad areas."

Yet viewers in Central Florida relied heavily on meteorologists' expertise Friday night. That development underscores how the weathercaster's role has evolved far beyond mere pleasing personality into a well-educated expert versed in the latest equipment.

"The technology gets better, the meteorologists get better at predictions," said WKMG news director Skip Valet. "This is what the viewers demand: as much notice on these storms as we can give them."

Terry and WKMG meteorologist Tom Sorrells agree that the hurricane center was slow with critical new information Friday.

"If you see the storm moving a different way than the official line, you owe it to your viewers to tell them," Sorrells said.

"They were late at the worst possible time," Terry said. "It's not the first time I've had to deal with some slow movement on their part."

He consulted news director Jordan, who decided to put aside the official forecast and go with the station's own. WFTV also urged viewers to disregard an ABC News brief that incorrectly said the hurricane was headed to Tampa.

"This is not 'Let's roll the dice, we might be lucky,' " Jordan said. "You have a trained meteorologist saying this is a new track."

Robin Smythe, general manager of Central Florida News 13, noted that meteorologists have been doing their own forecasting for years.

"The last 36 hours have proved we've all got experienced staff meteorologists," she said. "We all use the resources available to make these decisions about weather forecasting. There's not a television station that relies solely on the hurricane center."

The forecasting has gained more nuance with the introduction of Doppler radar in recent years.

"From a consumer point of view, Doppler just looks like a promotional tool," said WESH general manager Bill Bauman. "But when the storm comes in and you see it in action and what it allows our people to do, it's an extraordinary tool."

WESH meteorologist Leslie Hudson drew a line on air to explain how the hurricane had taken a turn to the east. Terry's explanation of the hurricane's turn will be acknowledged in a WFTV commercial over the weekend.

"If the nice people at my competition are going to take credit for that, they should share it," said WKMG's Valet. "Tom Sorrells was saying the exact same thing."

Sorrells wasn't grabbing for any special attention.

"The bottom line is Central Florida has to be taken care of," he said. "If Leslie is on and Tom is on and I'm on and we see it heading for landfall in South Florida, don't we owe it to our viewers to tell them what we think?"